Chimera
by LeoAndMe
Summary: I had lost so much in so short a time...or at least it felt that way to me. My family helped as best they could and for a while things started to look up. But what goes up must come down right? In the wake of a loss I thought would break me for sure, I find myself with the offer of a 2nd chance, but...am I strong enough to take it?
1. Chapter 1

Chaos...that was the feeling that I was vaguely aware of, the last thing that my muddled mind sort of remembered. There was shouting, but who had been shouting and what they were saying was lost on me. What was going on? I remembered fragments of images and snippets of sound that all slipped away too fast for my sluggish brain to try to hold onto long enough to make any sense of it. Pushing...I remembered pushing something...someone, maybe? There was a sense of duty with that wisp of memory, of fierce protectiveness that teased at a form or face to go with the memory before it too faded away only to be replaced with a searing flash of pain.

It was quiet now, or it seemed quiet, and that snapped my brain back into focus as there was something very wrong with that thought. It shouldn't be this quiet, I didn't know why exactly the current silence felt wrong, it just...it just shouldn't be that way. I had to move, I had to get up, I had to make sure...make sure...why was it so hard to remember?! What was so important that I _had_ to get up and move? I shifted in preparation to stand only to have my breath catch at the pain such a slight movement caused. My body begged me to lay still but instinct irrationally screamed at me to move and so I tried again. This time forcing myself until I awkwardly managed to sit up, the effort quickening my breathing to quiet pants of pain as I squinted my eyes open. What small victory was felt with that accomplishment quickly vanished as the world suddenly spun and I squeezed my eyes closed against it once more, waiting and praying for the wave of dizziness and nausea to pass. After a few moments the feeling had faded enough to be tolerable and I opened my eyes again to try and see where I was. Looking around, _slowly,_ I couldn't help the surprise that widened my eyes as I realized I was on a rooftop….a rooftop? Out in the open? But how had I gotten here and why? I may not remember much but I was most definitely NOT on a rooftop before...well before the part that I frustratingly cannot seem to remember!

The instinct to get moving resurfaced with double the intensity at how exposed I felt out here and with a pain filled, trembling effort I managed to get my left leg underneath me so I could stand. As I tried to get up, my right leg would not only refuse to respond but would also send a shock of pain at the attempt. The sudden surprise and intensity of it had me pitching forwards to crash against a nearby cooling unit with a hollow thud, the impact doing absolutely nothing for my already dizzy and aching head. Without much of a choice, I slid down along the cold metal surface until I was once again sitting, well 'sitting' might be too formal a word for how my battered body had simply crumpled on itself. Either way, I had sat on something mildly soft and extremely cold. Though that only lasted a moment as whatever it was slowly gave way beneath me and I sunk into a blanket of iciness on the rooftop. I squinted my eyes open just enough to hazard a look at myself, and what I saw made me hurriedly close my eyes once more. There were splatters and drops of red against what looked like a thick white blanket. It didn't make sense, a blanket way out on top of a roof but for now my confusion was eagerly dismissed as the freezing blanket brought with it a soothing numbness to my leg. Ever so carefully, I leaned my head back against the cooling unit that propped me up before closing my eyes once more, sluggishly trying to convince myself that I just needed a minute to re-group. Just a minute to gather my strength and then...then I would try to move again.

* * *

Leonardo ran silently along the rooftops, nothing more than a flicker of shadow as he jumped over the gaps between the buildings. It was the last leg of his patrol route and it had been a quiet night so far, at least on his side of the city. Then again with the latest near record snow fall who would want to be out here anyways? As it was, he and his brothers didn't want to be out here now but the criminal elements of the city didn't stop on account of snow. Plus, doing the nightly patrols helped him and his brothers fight off the natural instinct of their bodies to be lethargic and stave off the risk of slipping into mild, short bouts of hibernation. Granted rooftop jumping on ice and snow carried its own dangers but they had learned to deal with it for the most part as the seasons came and went. The best adjustment for the snow they had done was to have Donatello do his patrol in the BattleShell. Yes, it limited the genius turtle's actual patrol to available streets, but it allowed for the rest of the brothers to have somewhere safe to take a break and warm up should any of them need it, as well as mobile medical assistance.

It should have been a quiet patrol for everyone considering the weather but 'turtle luck', as Raphael liked to call it, always seemed to find a way. On any typical night, Leonardo could count on at least one entertaining tale from Michelangelo; usually about something the youngest of the brothers had found interesting or some new move the over-energetic turtle had managed to cobble together. This was in stark contrast to reports from Donatello which were usually fairly short and to the point, unless there was a new piece of equipment the genius turtle had managed to find and salvage along his patrol route. Then his excitement was a force to be reckoned with...assuming you could follow half of what the purple masked brother said. Then there was Raphael. His reports...well...suffice it to say that trouble always seemed to find his short-tempered brother, or maybe it was the other way around? Either way, Raphael's reports for the night usually had to be pulled out of the red-masked turtle one reluctant word at a time...or in a shouted bout of temper depending on how the night went.

A splash of vivid color that was wildly out of place against a backdrop of white caught his attention, pulling him out of his thoughts and have him skidding to a stop before turning so he could cautiously walk over to investigate. As he made his way over, he made sure to pull his hat down and his scarf up to keep as much of his face hidden as he could. There really wasn't much he could do about the added bulk the winter jacket put on his form, especially when it had to account for and attempt to conceal his katanas. The outfit was a necessary evil against the biting cold, but it did have its uses when it came to concealing the blue masked turtle from wandering eyes. Though as Leonardo approached the figure slumped in the snowbank accumulated against a now unused cooling unit, he had a feeling that being seen was something he didn't have to worry about for the moment. Especially as he realized that the splash of color that had caught his attention was blood.


	2. Chapter 2

Leonardo frowned at the amount of blood he saw, or at least it seemed like alot of blood. Maybe it was just the way it looked against the snow? Or maybe it didn't all belong to one person? His dark gaze swept the area but he didn't see anyone else, alive or otherwise; nor any signs of a battle or even a struggle. No indication that there had been anyone else on the rooftop other than himself and the unfortunate soul before him. He didn't even see any drag marks from the roof access door that lead back down into the building. So had the person been carried to this specific roof? But if they had why? And why then just leave them out to freeze? Surely they had to have known that it was unlikely anyone would find an injured person way up here...unless this was a trap. Leonardo frowned again at that thought, a trap for him and his brothers? But there had been no ambush and he had been on this rooftop for a few moments now, unless whoever was out there had been hoping to catch all of the brothers together?

Leonardo could feel the cold starting to seep in and stiffen his muscles as he stood there basically arguing with his own paranoia. He took a deep, steadying breath, allowing the frosted air to help clear his mind since no matter what had happened or how the person came to be here, Leonardo knew that he couldn't just let the person sit there and freeze, or bleed, to death...assuming they hadn't already. That thought had him moving closer to the figure and as he crouched down he could now better see that it was a woman that sat in the snow. Her dark, strawberry blonde hair a tangled mess around a face that was marred by a trail of blood running down the side of it making Leonardo aware of a possible head injury. She looked so still and pale though, that Leonardo wondered how long she had been sitting out here. He tried to ignore the amount of blood around him, grateful that the cold severely dulled what should have been an overwhelming scent of warm copper. He carefully reached out to check for a pulse at her throat, grimacing as he felt how cold her skin was against his, and that was saying something as he was cold-blooded. Not realizing he had been holding his breath, it came out in a rushed huff of air as he found the elusive and slow heartbeat after a moment of quiet dread. Relieved to know that it wasn't a corpse he had found, his thoughts shifted to seeing what he could do about getting her to a hospital as quickly as possible. His hands hurriedly, but carefully, set about to brushing off whatever snow had fallen onto the woman so that he could see what kind of injuries he was dealing with. Leonardo looked over her torso as he cleared the snow and he noted the various cuts and tears to her shirt and the likely matching wounds beneath that had the material clinging to the slender form. She seemed to be covered in dirt or maybe ash, making her look like she had just crawled out from underneath fresh rubble; though that made no sense being way up here on a rooftop. Moving down her body, he couldn't help the sharp intake of breath that hissed through clenched teeth at what he found as he uncovered her right leg. There was a large burn that covered almost the entire top of her thigh down to her knee. After that, just below her knee the tattered remains of her long pants clung to shredded flesh and the rest of her leg was angled awkwardly making him pretty sure that it was broken. Leonardo continued to brush away the snow and he found that while her left leg had some cuts as well, it seemed overall alright. As he finished clearing away the last of the snow, he would next uncover a sword laying next to the woman, her pale hand resting loosely around the hilt and the blade edged with blood. So the woman had defended herself...or tried to at least. There was something oddly familiar about the sword but he didn't really have the time to figure out what at the moment, so instead he would gently remove it from her hand and tuck it into his belt for safe keeping.

Leonardo shifted to a better position as his arms reached out in preparation to pick her up, but instead he would end up freezing mid-movement as his dark grey-blue gaze locked onto the gold-green eyes that groggily stared at him. He realized too late that the scarf that covered the lower half of his face had fallen away while he had worked to look over her injuries. He waited for the scream that was usually the first reaction to someone seeing him, but when none came he was both relieved and a little worried. Maybe the woman was too out of it to realize what she was looking at? "I mean you no harm, Miss." Leonardo kept his voice quiet and calm, while trying to stay very still despite the fact that the cold from crouching down in piles of snow was threatening to set him to shivering. "I'm going to get you to a hospital, alright?" Any hope he'd had that the woman had been less than fully aware, diminished as he watched the dilated pupils slowly try to narrow into vertical slits, like the eyes of a cat, at his mention of a hospital. The woman shook her head at him, the movement slow and jerky, before Leonardo felt something heavy flop against one of his still outstretched arms. He risked a glance down only to find that there was now a long feline tail with black-spotted tawny-gold fur draped lifelessly over his forearm. He blinked and looked back up to the woman's face, unable to hide the surprise on his own face as he watched two large ears on top of her head twitch their way out of the tangled mess of dark strawberry blonde hair. He mentally kicked himself out of his surprised stupor and he would look away from her for a moment, having realized that we was staring at her. He tried to quickly sift through his other options of getting her help, but considering how limited they were he didn't have many choices. The hospital was obviously out of the question. Leonardo was relatively close to the lair, but with the damage to the woman's leg and how cold she was, he didn't want to risk a long run through the snow covered rooftops nor the icy sewers. His brothers should all be done with their parts of the patrol by now, which meant that Donatello was likely meeting up with them at their rendezvous point before heading home. He could take her to April's but their red-headed friend didn't exactly have the amount or type of medical supplies that would be needed to treat all of the woman's injuries. His decision made, he gently slipped her tail off of his arm before reaching for his T-phone to turn on his GPS tracker and activate the headset to tap into the common line they all kept open while doing separate patrols. "Donatello, I need you to pick me up. I found a woman out here and she's hurt pretty bad."

"So drop 'er off at the hospital Fearless" Raph's gruff voice being the first to answer, his tone make it clear that the sai-wielder was more than ready to be out of the snow and cold for the night.

"Not an option, she's a mutant of some kind" Leo answered in the hopes of putting off any other questions and waiting to see what his self-proclaimed medic brother had in the way of advice.

"A mutant?! What kind? Does she have any powers? Is she cute? What does she-" came the rapid fire questions from the youngest of the brothers before being cut off by a resounding 3-voice chorus of "MIKEY!"

"Leo, I have your position from your tracker, we're two minutes out. What are her injuries?" finally came Donatello's voice over the shared line.

"The worse ones are a broken leg, a bad burn on the same leg, and maybe a bad head wound. There are alot of cuts but none of them look serious enough for the amount of blood I'm seeing. And Donnie...she's cold, almost ice cold."

"Is she shivering?"

"No"

"That's not a good sign. Means her body has started to shut down. Shivering is how the body tries to keep warm but in moderate or severe hypothermia the body slows or stops any extraneous activity to try and preserve what heat is left. And if that head injury is bad enough to have caused a concussion she could be in serious trouble Leo." The line was silent for only a moment before Donatello's voice continued "Leo, we're a block or two away now... Raph's driving" the last words offered in way of explanation to Leonardo's silent question of how they'd gotten to him so quickly "You need to get her bundled up and down here" was the no nonsense order from his medic brother.

Leonardo had been moving the instant Donatello had commented on the woman's body starting to shut down. He had unzipped and stripped out of his coat, moving so that he could lean the woman forward to drape his coat over her shoulders. Leonardo would be glad that she seemed to have slipped back into unconsciousness as he was sure that moving her around was bound to hurt no matter how gentle he was. Once his coat was around her, he moved one arm to beneath her knees while the other stayed against her back while he carefully scooped her up. Leonardo moved to the edge of the roof, dark grey-blue eyes looking below him to plot out a way down that would involve the least amount jostling to the injured woman he held, wishing he had remembered about her tail as it now hung down to brush against his legs as he moved; he hoped it wouldn't get caught on anything or get hurt on the way down. He saw the familiar headlights of the Battleshell turning into the alley he was now overlooking and with a final check he would use the surrounding fire escapes and ledges to navigate his way down.

* * *

The cold was moving...wait, that made no sense, how could cold be moving? I clung to that question as I tried to wake up. I shouldn't have fallen asleep, so much for just 'taking a minute' to regroup; who knew how long I had been out. Again came the sensation of cold moving and this time there was a dull ache that followed it; that dull ache sparked its way to become tingling pain and I was finally awake enough to force my eyes open. Despite my eyes being open, I couldn't immediately understand what I was looking at, everything was out of focus and little more than blobs of colors or light. I blinked a few times and finally I was able to see that there was something...no someone... crouched in front of me and they were pushing snow off of my body; that explains why it felt like the cold was moving. Somewhere in my fuzzy brain, there was an echo that whispered a familiarity about the form before me, something about the way the person was hunched was familiar, but as before my mind refused to process how or why, leaving me only with the irrational impression that I was in no danger from whoever this was. Before my impromptu 'nap', it had been hard to remember, now it was downright near impossible to think, the cold that had numbed my body was steadily working on freezing my mind as well. I heard a voice and my frozen brain managed to pick out and recognize only one word; hospital. I couldn't let that happen. It took me two tries but I was eventually able to shake my head at whoever it was, and as explanation I used what energy I could find to lift my suddenly too heavy tail. It flopped gracelessly over what I hoped was an arm and hopefully it was enough to get them to notice it. I also worked to make my ears twitch enough to where hopefully they would see them through the mess that was my hair and whatever snow was on my head. I wouldn't know if my message of not wanting to go to a hospital was understood, as I felt my awareness dim from the small effort of my minimal movements.

I must have drifted off again, because when I next heard a voice it was in hushed urgent tones and extremely close. A second voice cut it off, and my ears weakly swiveled in the direction it came from, realizing that this one sounded irate though distracted somehow. I wasn't entirely sure if the voices were in fact making the attempt to stay hushed or if they just sounded far off to my hazy mind, but either way there was something different. I didn't feel as exposed, and while I was still cold I didn't feel like it was all around me, in fact I felt like I was snuggled into something soft. Soft but there was something else...it was like...like I was being held, cradled against something solid. I struggled against the pull of unconsciousness, forcing my eyes open even if only a little. The voices quieted around me as I stared at what I saw, my large ears twitching trying to use both sight and sound to make sense of it. My face was leaning against something hard, flat and too close to really tell what color it was. My ears drooped and I tilted my head back enough so that I could look up only to realize that what I saw there made no sense either. Looking down at me there was a blob of green, oddly rounded and if I'd had my wits about me I would have said could have been a person's head, but the skin color was all wrong and there was a band of blue across it. I must have made some sort of movement, or maybe it was simply my silent, dumbfounded staring but the voice that a moment ago had been urgent, was now speaking to me in calm, soothing tones, my ears perking once more to make sure I caught the words "It's ok. We won't hurt you, you're safe" And without questioning it, just like before, I believed that voice...I believed /him/, my mind just now registering that the voice was male. There was something important about that voice, something nagged at me to remember but I just didn't have the strength. Instead I gave a single nod in acknowledgement of his words before everything faded to black.


	3. Chapter 3

The ride home had been mostly quiet. Oh there was the initial flurry of arguments, mainly from Raphael. Some of his points had been valid, for example how to know that this wasn't a trap of some sort? When had they started picking up strays? Michelangelo of course countered with his arguments of helping those in need, especially a cute /girl/ mutant. Donatello hadn't commented on either of the brother's words as he was more concerned with what supplies they had on hand to help this new mystery mutant with. All arguing ceased when Leonardo climbed into the battleshell and all eyes settled on the seemingly lifeless form the blue-masked leader held against his plastron. She looked so still and fragile, despite the mess of melting snow and dirt and blood that clung to her form. Then there were the ears and overlong tail, it was like trying to turn away a hurt kitten, it just wrenched at the heartstrings in a way you couldn't say no; Michelangelo's words, not his. Donatello had been the first to recover, ushering Leonardo fully into the battleshell so they could close the door and get moving. The medic terrapin then quickly snapping and shaking up a few chemical hot packs in preparation to tuck them in around the woman. Raphael was already hitting the gas and heading along the path that would get them to the garage they kept all their vehicles in, his argument forgotten for the moment. Michelangelo had stared the longest but had eventually made himself useful by getting a couple of blankets.

After Leonardo had gotten himself and his cargo into the battleshell, Donatello had gotten a better look at the woman and stopped Leonardo from settling her down onto one of the long seats. She was more pale and cold to the touch than Donatello had expected, her breathing was slow and shallow, indications that she was quickly slipping into severe hypothermia. As such, Donatello didn't want to move her anymore than they had to, so instead he had told Leo to keep hold of her and sit with her on his lap. It served two purposes; First, it allowed Leo to share his body heat with the woman, something Donatello ensured by placing the blankets Michelangelo had gotten around the pair. One over the woman and the other draped over Leonardo's shoulders, effectively creating a tent or cocoon of sorts, which also helped to trap the heat from those hot packs Donatello had shaken up a moment ago. Secondly, if Leonardo held onto her, then when they arrived at the Lair it was less jostling for her injuries than if they had to pick her up from a prone position. Leonardo had seemed a bit awkward at first, holding himself stiff in the seat as if the woman were going to spontaneously wake up and bite him. He was partially right; the woman did wake up.

Donatello had stabilized her leg as best he could for now, quietly asking Leonardo for any extra information about the woman's injuries as he worked. He had moved on to try and see how bad the injury to her head was, when he noticed the large ears on the woman's head start to twitch. He immediately took a step back, not wanting to frighten her by looming over her as he was. His action had of course drawn both Mikey and Leo's attention. The woman's eyes had opened but with how slow her reactions were and the fact that her eyes were so dilated, told Donatello that she wasn't completely aware of everything around her. She looked up and Leonardo met her gaze, quietly reassuring her that she was safe. The woman nodded before she passed out, her body now leaning into Leonardo seeking out the warmth that his form offered, her face cuddled against his plastron. Donatello watched as Leonardo stared at her, something about the simple exchange would have his blue-masked brother relaxing slightly. Leonardo's arms gingerly shifting so he could hold her close enough to him that he could better wrap the second blanket around himself and her.

Once they were back in the lair, Donatello had slipped into what his brothers affectionately called his 'Doctor Mode', giving each of the turtles some small way of helping. Donatello had found throughout the years that giving each brother a small task to do in these types of situations made them feel helpful and kept them from hovering and asking Donatello distracting questions while he was trying to work. Raphael had taken care of the shellraiser and made sure that the garage and other entrances were locked and concealed as they should be. Michelangelo had been tasked with warming the initial pair of IV bags that would be needed for the woman, since the young chef didn't trust anyone near his kitchen appliances. And Donatello had gotten Leonardo to help in maneuvering the woman so that the purple-masked brother could better cut away the ruined remains of the woman's clothes and tend to her wounds. Because of this, Donatello had been able to find the source of all the blood Leonardo had seen; the woman had a deep gash along the left side of her torso that had needed a total of 12 stitches. Her head wound had been shallow so it didn't need stitches, but Donatello did not doubt the presence of a concussion based on the woman's awareness for the little while that she was conscious. Leonardo's suspicion had been correct and her lower right leg was broken. A quick x-ray had revealed that both her tibia and fibula were broken but thankfully they had been clean, transverse breaks. They had been easy to re-set and afterwards he had bandaged the leg. Having opted to wait on applying a cast until he knew that the wound around the break was healing cleanly. 'Thankfully' may not be the best word to use since any broken bone was never good, but Donatello was still relieved that the leg and broken bones wouldn't need surgery. As clean as he tried to keep the infirmary area, it was still located within a sewer and there was always a worry of infection. A worry that was all too real considering the last of her major injuries. Her thigh had a second degree burn on it that wasn't as bad as he had initially thought. At first glance, Donatello worried that most of the flesh around her leg had been burned away, but that was mostly an illusion caused by the black material of her pants clinging to the wound. Once he had cut those away and cleaned the burned flesh, he found that while it was still serious it was at least not as expansive as he first worried. He would still have to keep a close eye on it as it was the most susceptible to infection of all her injuries.

For the moment, things were settling down for the night...well day, Donatello supposed since he had been working on the woman's wounds since they got back. Leonardo had lingered for a bit, and Donatello would have guessed that his eldest brother was going to stay to watch over their new patient considering Leo's overdeveloped sense of responsibility. Surprisingly though, Leo had ultimately excused himself once Donatello did not need his help moving the woman and left the infirmary and lab, leaving Donatello to finish up the last of the bandages. Donatello didn't mind, it just seemed like an odd move on his brother's part. It's not like Leo went to talk to Master Splinter, their Sensei was out on a trip for a few days, so why had his eldest brother nearly bolted from the lab?

Right now the purple-masked turtle was about to use a bowl of warm water and a wash cloth to try and clean off the worse of the dirt that the woman had on her. Donatello had replaced the chemical hot packs from earlier with the set up of one of the basking heat lamps near the bed to help warm her up as she recovered and had carefully placed one of their heavier blankets over her. He made sure that the overlong tail was tucked safely up against the woman, not wanting to risk stepping on it. The deep chocolate colored gaze studied the black spots on the tawny-golden fur and it made him think of the tails on Jaguars or Leopards, he dismissed Cheetah though as the tail didn't seem thick enough. He noted a gritty feel to the fur and he wondered how he would go about getting the dirt out of fur. He could just wipe it down with the cloth but did he go with the lay of the fur or against it? And what about that adage about cats not liking getting wet? Not that she was a cat...not exactly anyways. Plus what if her tail was sensitive? Would his trying to wipe it down hurt her or... Donatello felt his cheeks warming up and he stopped /that/ particular set of thoughts before they had a chance to go very far by firmly tucking in the blanket on that side of the table and keeping the tail out of sight. He blamed his untoward thoughts on Michelangelo and his anime. "I sure hope you wake up soon. Otherwise Michelangelo is going to have a field day trying to give you a name. And I foresee all sorts of variants of names that mean or even sound like 'cat'" He spoke quietly to the unconscious woman, an apologetic look to his features as he looked up to the woman's face, though that quickly turned to one of confusion as his attention settled on her ears. He expected to see the smaller, rounded ears that would accompany his first assessment of her having been mutated with one of the large wild cats. Instead he found her ears to be rather large and sloped to almost a point. They were also covered in fur but the fur matched the dark strawberry blonde color of her hair and it looked coarser than the fur on her tail; a pure effort of will managing to keep him from reaching out and touching her ears to confirm his thought. Her ears were almost dog-like...wolf maybe? Donatello shook his head as his hands picked up the washcloth from the bowl and wrung out the excess water "Just wait till she's awake genius, not like she can hear or answer you right now." he muttered to himself before he started to gently wipe the dirt off her face. "Where did you come from anyways? And how did you get up on that roof?" Apparently, telling himself to wait until she was awake to ask questions didn't do much to keep him from continuing to voice his thoughts.

Once done with her face, Donatello dunked the washcloth back into the bowl and wrung it out again before he would start on her arm, having left both of them laying over the blanket after he had tucked her in. Moving from her shoulder to her upper arm, his eye ridges furrowed as he noted some of the dirt seemed to cling to her skin. Odd, since it wasn't sticky or anything...it almost looked like a pattern of some sort. He moved over to his desk only long enough to grab his magnifying goggles and put them on before going back to examining her arm. As he wiped some more dirt off he was able to see that the pattern was being caused by scales...smooth, delicate, flesh colored scales covered the woman's upper arm. He continued to wipe down her arm to see how far down the scales went. So far it was down along her forearm and Donatello had paused as something on the edge of her wrist caught his attention. He turned her arm over and using the wet washcloth he wiped away as much dirt as he could to reveal that what he had seen was the beginnings of a scar. It stretched nearly entirely across the inside of her wrist and for a moment Donatello was dismayed at the implication of such a scar. Except he noticed that the healed scar wasn't the rushed, ragged attempt of a suicide, but instead it was thin, clean, and neat... almost surgical, in its precision. Continuing to wipe down her hand, he found that the scales covered the back of her hand but not her palm. However what he /did/ find on her palm was another thin surgical scar that connected from the one on her wrist, traveling up lengthwise across her palm. The thin scar split into two between the first and second knuckle of her hand, one scar continuing up her index finger and the other up her middle finger all the way to the tip, disappearing beneath the fingernail. It was like her hand had been surgically flayed open for something. A surgical repair of another broken bone or bones maybe? Donatello blinked as a thought struck him, and he reached across the woman to wipe at her other hand. His eye ridges lifting in confused surprise as he found identical scarring on the opposite hand. His mind absently calculating the odds that both of the woman's hands had had the same type and amount of broken bones to warrant such identical surgeries. The probability was infinitely low and he made a mental note to take x-rays of her hands when he got the chance, but before he could ponder on what else may have caused those scars, his thoughts would be distracted by an all too familiar voice.


	4. Chapter 4

_**So this chapter is out so quickly because it was originally part of chapter 3. Except, as I was writing I realized how long it would end up being so I decided to split it into two chapters. I know it is slow going but I hope you like what you've read so far.**_

* * *

"So how's our Neko friend doing, Doctor D?" Michelangelo cheerily questioned as he made his way over, bringing Donatello out of his thoughts with a delayed groan as the genius registered what the youngest brother had just called the woman. His earlier musings on Michelangelo's attempts at naming the woman coming true...at least he hadn't started with 'Kitten'. Donatello pulled the goggles up to rest on the top of his head as he placed the washcloth back into the bowl of now cold water.

"She's stable for now, trying to keep her warm." he commented motioning to the heat lamp "I was able to re-set her leg break and bandage all her wounds. She needed some stitches bu-MIKEY! Stop that!" Donatello's hand having to snatch Mikey's away as the orange-masked turtle had been trying to lift the blanket, probably looking for her tail. "Michelangelo, I am sure that you would not appreciate being gawked at if you were in her position, so stop and she is not a cat."

"Oh...yeah, you're right Donnie, sorry..." bright blue eyes looking down as his hand lifted to rub the back of his neck sheepishly. The last of Donnie's words would have the youngest looking back up to him. "Yes she is, she has a tail and ears and I bet her eyes are all thin slitted like a cat's. Oh! I know! Donnie, grab one of your eye flashlights, we'll check her eyes" the baby blue gaze looking about the nearby desk and table tops excitedly for the requested item.

"It's called a penlight, Mikey, and we will not be flashing it into her eyes...at least not without a good reason" Donatello had to correct himself since he had used the penlight earlier to check her pupil reaction to light. "And again, she is not a cat. Those aren't even cat ears...I think they're wolf ears...or at least a canine of some sort. Plus I found that she has scal-"

"Donnie, if she's not a cat, then why does she have a collar and tag around her neck?" came Mickey's interruption

"Huh? What collar?" the chocolate brown gaze looked back towards the woman, checking her neck and sure enough there was a..."Mickey, it's just a necklace and locket" though Donatello had to admit that the necklace part of it looked like little more than a strip of cloth verses an actual chain necklace.

"Oh! If it's a locket, maybe she has a picture in it that'll help us figure out where she came from!"

"That's...actually a good idea Mikey"

"Thanks, D! I keep telling you guys I have awesome ideas, but no one ever believes me! I got tons more if you need help with anything" Michelangelo grinned brightly at his brother before looking about the rest of the lab to see if there were any immediate projects he could help Donatello tackle.

"Ah, thanks, Mikey. But umm...maybe next time. Right now...right now let's go with your idea." Donatello tried to redirect Mickey's 'helpful' energy, or at least the youngest's attention.

Olive green skinned hands gently brushed the dark strawberry blonde tresses away from the woman's neck so that he could reach around to remove the necklace. It was a slip of blue material that was knotted in the back. Once he had untied the knot, he found that the material was actually long enough to wrap around the woman's neck twice so that it was overlapped on itself, creating the illusion of it being wider than it actually was. Once he'd pull the necklace away, he heard Mikey's low whistle and Donatello couldn't help the deep frown that settled on his lips, the reason for the wide coverage of the material becoming clear. Across her neck was a ragged and vicious looking scar that wrapped around the front and sides of her throat and Donatello could only imagine that they continued all the way around behind her neck. Almost like...a collar had been used on her; or at least if the collar had been made of glass shards or barbed wire, it was the only way Donatello could think for a collar to be capable of that kind of damage. There /were/ other things that Donatello could think of that could cause such a scar but he didn't want to think on them and he most certainly did NOT want to tell Michelangelo about them. That first thought of it coming from a collar was likely the result of Mikey"s earlier comment about the woman"s necklace. The scar was completely healed, but it was definitely a recent thing. It was no where as faded as the other scars he had found on her while he worked to bandage up her wounds and the scar tissue was still hard and fairly raised.

"What do you think did that?" was Mikey's whispered question

"I don't...I'm not sure, Mikey." Donatello answered before forcing himself to look away from the woman's throat and down to the locket in his hands. For a locket is was fairly large; it was oval in shape and looked to be just shy of 2 inches long and maybe 1.5 inches wide. It was made of a light colored material, so maybe silver or white gold. He didnt exactly have much experience with jewelry so he couldn't be sure one way or the other. The front of it was domed and it had a design engraved onto it. Within the design were embedded 5 gemstones that surrounded a 6th, central gemstone. The design looked familiar and it was only the space of a second, maybe two, before Donatello's eyes widened as he realized what he was looking at; it was the seal of the Hamato clan. It had been engraved onto the front of the locket and in each of the rounded points within the circle there was a gemstone...gemstones in colors he knew all too well; Blue, Red, Purple and Orange. The fifth gemstone was brown in color, and if his theory was correct, Donatello could guess who was represented by the brown stone. But that 6th stone, the one that sat in the middle, surrounded by the familiar colors, was a bright green.

This made no sense. None of them knew this woman, Donatello was sure of that. And yet this woman either knew them, knew of them or it was the biggest coincidence in the world...no, universe! Dimension maybe? Donatello shook his head slightly trying to get his thoughts back on track. His hand shifted slightly and he opened the locket, the two pictures inside would draw a quiet, surprised gasp from him as he took a step away from the table the woman was asleep on.

"Dude, what's wrong? The picture can't be that bad." Michelangelo made his way around the table to stand next to Donnie so he could look at the picture himself. "Whoa...what the shell..." his features shifting until they matched the shocked surprise that was on Donatello's face.

The picture on the left was a candid family portrait of sorts. A family portrait of /them/. Sitting up in the center of the couch was the woman they had found, except she was soaking wet and looking for all the world like...well like a sputtering cat. The reason for it would be standing behind her and the familiar couch she sat on. There was Mickey, a huge too proud smile on his face, one hand resting on the back of the couch while the other was frozen in the motion of bouncing a water balloon. Sitting right next to the woman was Leo, he was facing towards the woman and Mikey, trying to wipe off the water that had splashed onto him and the look on his face was one that said he didn't know whether to laugh at the woman or admonish Mikey for his water balloon prank. Donatello saw himself sitting on the far side of the couch, dry luckily, but both hands were up in a placating type of gesture and even though he was laughing he was at least trying to be nice about it. Which was more than could be said for the last of the brothers. Raphael was bent over he was laughing so hard, he was torwards the foreground of the picture as he had likely been sitting on his favored bean bag chair. Off towards the far edge of the picture and also behind the couch would stand Master Splinter. While their Sensei looked amused, it was mixed with the loving exasperation of a Father. It was a moment of frozen, carefree happiness and Donatello could understand how it had earned a spot in the locket, he just didn't understand how or why this woman had this picture.

For all the surprise the first picture caused, the picture on the right side of the locket brought sheer disbelief and would have both his and Michelagelo's jaw dropping. It was a picture of the woman and Leonardo and...a child! The pair were close together, leaning against one another with their heads bowed over the form of the sleeping girl held between them. She looked like she couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 years old. Her skin was a bright malachite green and if Donatello had to guess probably scaled. Her face though human, was slightly elongated, almost serpentine, giving her a declicately exotic look. Long dark brown hair had been swept aside and the rest of the child's body was covered under a blanket. The picture had been cropped so that the three figures took up most of the frame, but Donatello could recognize the back of their couch behind them. It was like the little girl had fallen asleep on one of their laps and neither the woman or Leo wanted to disturb her by moving. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the woman's eyes were closed as well, she had fallen asleep too, with her head resting on Leonardo's shoulder. Leonardo for his part had lightly leaned his own head atop of the woman's, one arm draped protectively over her shoulders while the other wrapped around the girl to make sure the little one didn't slide off while she slept. The look on Leo's face as he gazed down at the two sleeping figures was one of such quiet love and serene pride that Donatello couldn't help but wonder if the eldest brother was both husband and father. It was such an unguarded moment of tenderness from the stoic leader that Donatello almost felt guilty looking at the picture...like he was intruding on something intimately private. Whoever the photographer had been, had somehow managed to capture this picture without Leonardo's knowledge since Donatello doubted Leonardo would have openly shown such emotion with his brothers around.

Donatello snapped his jaw shut, just now realizing he was gaping at the pair of pictures before him. His attention floated to the unconscious woman who lay on the table in his infirmary and he had so many questions racing through his head, he was sure he was going to get a headache. "Uh...Donnie..." Michelangelo finally broke the stunned silence. Donatello looked back to Mikey to find that he had pulled the slip of blue material out of the locket's eyelet. As Mikey held it by one end to let it hang, the material shifted and flattened out into a band that both of the younger brothers knew. The final confirmation came when the band of blue cloth had relaxed enough to reveal two cut out holes where eyes should be. Baby blue eyes locked with deep chocolate brown before they both turned to rush out of the lab in search of their eldest brother. Donatello carrying the closed locket and Michelangelo carrying Leonardo's mask.


End file.
